
Functional Description
(Continued)
Voltage Estimator and 16 in the flash converter) is required
to quantize the input to 6 bits, instead of the 64 that would be
required using a traditional 6-bit flash.
Prior to a conversion, the Sample/Hold switch is closed,
allowing the voltage on the S/H capacitor to track the input
voItage. Switch 1 is in position 1. A conversion begins by
opening the Sample/Hold switch and latching the output of
the Voltage Estimator. The estimator decoder then selects
two adjacent banks of tap points aIong the MSB ladder.
These sixteen tap points are then connected to the sixteen
flash converters. For exampIe, if the input voltage is between
5/16 and 7/16 of V
(V
= V
V
), the estimator
decoder instructs the comparator multiplexer to select the
sixteen tap points between 2/8 and 4/8 (4/16 and 8/16) of
V
and connects them to the sixteen flash converters. The
first flash conversion is now performed, producing the first 6
MSBs of data.
At this point, Voltage Estimator errors as large as 1/16 of
V
REF
will be corrected since the flash converters are con-
nected to ladder voltages that extend beyond the range
specified
by
the
Voltage
(7/16)V
REF
<
V
IN
<
(9/16)V
REF
, the Voltage Estimator’s
comparators tied to the tap points below (9/16)V
REF
will
output “1”s (000111). This is decoded by the estimator de-
coder to “10”. The 16 comparators will be placed on the MSB
ladder tap points between (
3
8
)V
and (
5
8
)V
. This over-
lap of (1/16)V
will automatically cancel a Voltage Estima-
tor error of up to 256 LSBs. If the first flash conversion
determines that the input voltage is between (
3
8
)V
and
((4/8)V
LSB/2), the Voltage Estimator’s output code will
be corrected by subtracting “1”, resulting in a corrected value
of “01” for the first two MSBs. If the first flash conversion
determines that the input voltage is between (4/8)V
LSB/2) and (
5
8
)V
REF
, the voltage estimator’s output code is
unchanged.
The results of the first flash and the Voltage Estimator’s
output are given to the factory-programmed on-chip EE-
PROM which returns a correction code corresponding to the
error of the MSB ladder at that tap. This code is converted to
a voltage by the Correction DAC. To generate the next four
bits, SW1 is moved to position 2, so the ladder voltage and
the correction voltage are subtracted from the input voltage.
The remainder is applied to the sixteen flash converters and
compared with the 16 tap points from the LSB ladder.
Estimator.
For
example,
if
The result of this second conversion is accurate to 10 bits
and describes the input remainder as a voltage between two
tap points (V
H
and V
L
) on the LSB ladder. To resolve the last
two bits, the voltage across the ladder resistor (between V
H
and V
L
) is divided up into 4 equal parts by the capacitive
voltage divider, shown in Figure 5 The divider also creates 6
LSBs below V
and 6 LSBs above V
to provide overlap
used by the digital error correction. SW1 is moved to position
3, and the remainder is compared with these 16 new volt-
ages. The output is combined with the results of the Voltage
Estimator, first flash, and second flash to yield the final 12-bit
result.
By using the same sixteen comparators for all three flash
conversions, the number of comparators needed by the
multi-step converter is significantly reduced when compared
to standard multi-step techniques.
Applications Information
1.0 MODES OF OPERATION
The ADC12662 has two interface modes: An interrupt/read
mode and a high speed mode. Figure 1 and 2 show the
timing diagrams for these interfaces.
In order to clearly show the relationship between S/H, CS,
RD, and OE, the control logic decoding section of the
ADC12662 is shown in Figure 6
Interrupt Interface
As shown in Figure 1 the falling edge of S/H holds the input
voltage and initiates a conversion. At the end of the conver-
sion, the EOC output goes high and the INT output goes low,
indicating that the conversion results are latched and may be
read by pulling RD low. The falling edge of RD resets the INT
line. Note that CS must be low to enable S/H or RD.
High Speed Interface
The Interrupt interface works well at lower speeds, but few
microprocessors could keep up with the 1 μs interrupts that
would be generated if the ADC12662 was running at full
speed. The most efficient interface is shown in Figure 2
Here the output data is always present on the databus, and
the INT to RD delay is eliminated.
A
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